


Soft

by Katalyna_Rose



Series: Kahlia Mahariel [19]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 07:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12954501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katalyna_Rose/pseuds/Katalyna_Rose
Summary: "Okay! DWC!! I'd love to hear about your Solavellan or Mahariel/Zev, if you're feeling them! Prompt: constellations, bare feet in the grass, fingertips" from @superfluouskeys on tumblrKahlia is home but she needs time to heal and adjust to her new life. When she's overwhelmed by the city, Zevran suggests they take a break and breathe the fresh air of the wilderness, where they can focus on each other.





	Soft

The grass was soft under Kahlia’s feet. She stared down at it, long strands of green twisting between her toes, and wondered how long it had truly been since she’d felt the grass like this. Years, certainly, since before the Pit, before Denerim. She’d been forced to wear shoes through most of the Blight because of the corrosive nature of darkspawn blood and the corruption of the land, and she could still remember pulling that first pair of leather boots on over her feet and hating the feeling. She’d been stupid and stubborn at first and hadn’t worn socks because she wanted to be able to stretch her toes a little more, but the blisters weren’t worth it and she’d given in after only a few days. She’d hated the disconnect between herself and the land that the shoes caused and the first thing she always did every night when they made camp was take off the damned shoes.

She hadn’t worn shoes since being taken to the Pit. They’d been taken from her and she assumed some darkspawn had worn her shoes after that, until they fell apart. But there was no grass underground for her to enjoy. There was nothing underground for her to enjoy.

She refused to wear shoes at home, though Antiva City was hardly the cleanest place. Still, she couldn’t get back in the habit and the ritual of washing her feet every night was preferable to the torture that was shoes. She’d always been confused by Leliana’s insistence that shoes could be beautiful when they were always so uncomfortable. But there was no grass in the city for her to enjoy, though she did love this particular city.

She had felt guilty, like a burden, when she kept getting overwhelmed by the city around her. It had been so very long since she’d had to live with so much noise and so many people so close by. There was a certain uncomfortable similarity between the bustle and clamoring of the city and the screeching and fighting that was the Pit and it was something that she couldn’t always ignore. In her heart, she would always be Dalish and so she would always prefer the sounds of the forest. That perfect stillness in winter, when the snow lay heavy over the world and the trees gleamed with ice and the clan used pinecones to start their fires and they ate the nuts from within them. It was a task for the children, knocking the pinecones to release the nuts, and it was something she’d enjoyed as a child. She missed the summer breeze across the sweet grasses and the clan that always camped near them at that time of year, the cicadas buzzing loudly in the trees. The forest was always loud, but it was entirely different from the city.

“We should take a break from city life,” Zevran had suggested as she recovered from her third panic attack in a day, this one caused by the tight press of people in the market. She’d just recovered enough to curl up against his chest and seek his touch instead of flinching away from it, and she’d looked up at him from where she was hiding in his shoulder. His smile had been kind and understanding and never, ever pitying. He thought she was strong even though she felt so weak. “Let’s go, just the two of us and our bows, and spend a few weeks in the woods. A day’s walk from the city, I know of a river, and there’s no road near the pond it leads to. I found it by mistake when I was lost once, chasing a mark who was much better in the woods than I, at the time. I think you would like it there, and we would not be disturbed. We have earned a break, yes?”

So they’d packed up the bare minimum of essentials, just a small tent, some clothes, and some weapons, and Zevran had taken her out to the river in the woods and the pond, more like a small lake, that it fed into. She stood near the shore while Zevran began the process of cleaning and gutting the fish she’d taught him how to catch with his hands in the river and just took in the familiar sounds of birds and insects and burrowing animals and even deer and a few halla who dared to graze nearby. It was loud but it was the right sort of loud, and she stood with her bare feet in the soft grass and just listened, deriving a peace she’d thought she’d lost from the familiar landscape. Forests in Antiva were different, the climate much warmer and drier, but she knew forests and wilderness better than she knew her own face and she was at home here.

The sun was setting by the time she returned to their campsite and Zevran. He was still struggling with the fish and hadn’t started the fire. She felt the urge to smile at her poor city-born lover, an urge she hadn’t had in years. It didn’t quite reach her face, just a slight tug to her lips, but it was more than she had thought ever to manage again.

Her hands descending over Zevran’s stilled them and when he looked up at her he seemed in awe. “Wash your hands and build a fire, vhenan. I will finish here,” she told him. He nodded with a grateful smile and stole a gentle kiss as he stood. She knelt at his workplace and worked from muscle memory to get the fish cleaned, scaled, and gutted in a fraction of the time Zevran had spent trying. He was blowing gently on the sparks in the tinder under the wood they’d gathered earlier as she rubbed a little salt and herbs she’d found into the skin of the fish and skewered them. She built the spit while the logs caught flame and their fire began to burn in earnest.

“I am afraid I’m somewhat useless when it comes to fish, amor,” Zevran said with a rueful smile as she settled the fish over the fire on the spit.

“Fish take practice, that’s all,” she assured him. She summoned him over and gave him control of the cooking while she gathered up the scraps for disposal. “There’s a technique to it, as I showed you, but it’s not the sort of thing you can learn in a day.” She dropped a kiss on his cheek in passing as she carried the garbage away.

When she returned, he was staring at her, still adjusting the spit every so often to cook it evenly. She stopped, the orange and pink of the setting sun behind her, and just looked at him and the way his eyes reflected the light. “What?” she asked, tilting her head and pulling a strand of hair that the wind tried to blow across her face to tuck it behind her ear.

Zevran kept staring, a smile on his face crinkling his eyes. “You seem lighter here,” he finally told her. “I had hoped you would feel more at home, but it is rather extraordinary to witness.”

Kahlia sat beside him near the fire as the day began to cool into night and leaned against him lightly. He waited a few minutes until she was comfortable before wrapping his arm lightly around her. It would take at least ten minutes, but eventually she would be halfway in his lap as he held her.

“It’ll get easier for me in the city,” she told him after a few minutes, much later than was polite to respond. It was just one of those things about her that he’d been forced to accommodate since her return. She got lost in thought, in this moment, or in moments long past and failed to respond to him until much later. He was so patient with her that she felt guilty for it. “I’ll get used to it.”

His arm tightened briefly, just enough to give support. “If you do not, it will be alright. We can move to the outskirts, if you want, where it’s quieter,” he offered.

“You have already done so much for me,” she murmured, a frown creasing her brow at tugging on the scar that stretched into her hairline. “I don’t want to ask for more.”

“I am offering, amor,” he reminded her, a smile in his voice. “You are not a burden to me, remember? You are a gift, one whom I treasure. I want to ease you. Te amo, Kahlia.”

She leaned further into his embrace and tucked her head under his chin. She felt him rub his cheek on her hair and the wild curls that he loved as he held her with the most perfect pressure, never caging her. They were silent as the smell of roasting fish filled the air and the stars came out to twinkle high above them.

A while later, as Zevran pulled the fish off the fire, she stretched a hand up to the sky and traced a shape made by exceptionally bright stars. “Look, the High Dragon,” she murmured, following the lines she’d been taught as a child when she stared up at the sky and wondered what was up there.

Zevran balanced the stick between their knees so that the fish would cool in the open air and turned his gaze toward the sky. “Yes, I see it,” he whispered, tilting his head so his face was near hers. “Draconis, the scholars call it. I always thought it looked a little more… Ah, well, it never seemed to be a dragon to me.”

Kahlia hummed in thought and tilted her head the other way to view it from another angle. “I always thought constellations were very arbitrary,” she confided. “They’re just brighter stars that people draw pictures on. But you could draw an entirely different picture using those same points if you just connect them differently. I never thought there was real meaning to it, just that people will always try to force order where there is chaos. The stars care nothing for us small mortals so far below them, but we seem to care a great deal about them.”

There was silence for a moment before Zevran kissed the side of Kahlia’s head. “You’ve always been a pessimist, then,” he murmured wryly and she huffed a breath, turning her gaze back to Thedas and her heart. Humor swam in her eyes as she looked at Zevran.

“Perhaps I simply don’t like to allow myself to be blinded by what people as a whole want to believe,” she countered. He smiled at her, tenderness in his gaze. He picked apart the hot fish with his fingertips until he could rip away a chunk of meat to delicately feed to her. She watched him as she took it and then licked the crumbs from his skin and she saw the way tenderness melted into heat. Still, his only reaction to her wordless suggestion was a widening of his smile. He continued to feed her and take bites while she chewed, a small way he could take care of her. It continued to amaze her, though she’d returned him more than a year before, that he always wanted to give little bits of affection. She could easily have reached over and plucked the meat from the fish to feed herself, but he enjoyed being able to care for her in such a simple way.

There were so many ways he had to care for her that were hardly simple, things he had to do to make sure she didn’t harm herself while lost in the past. She scrubbed her hands so often she usually had blisters and the scar on her chest over her heart sometimes was nearly torn open. She would sometimes bang her head against the nearest hard object simply to give herself something to feel and there were times when the feather-light touch of her own hair would give her chills like the bugs of the deep. All these things he helped her with, kept her from seriously harming herself, reminded her that she was free, it was over, she was loved. All these things and more he’d had to learn about her and accommodate about her, but still he went out of his way to do more. He fed her the fish they’d caught from the tips of his fingers and brushed her hair back behind her ear just so he could touch the little ring she wore in the tip. And when they were finished they lay on their bedroll in their tent that was just big enough for the two of them and he let her move over him with gentle touches and soft encouragement. His eyes stayed on hers and he whispered how beautiful she was, how good it felt, that he loved her. The peace of the forest seeped into her bones and she found her pleasure with him for the first time. And he held her when it was done as she cried with relief because there was no pain. And he was patient and he was kind and she loved him so much her chest ached that he could be so good to her.

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I just... I just love them. I absolutely think that no one but Zev (of the Origins romances) would be able to handle Kahlia now. He's the only one who has actually been there, literally tortured and whatnot. He's so sweet to her and I just love it!


End file.
